Newswise (2/24/07) - US Job Satisfaction Declines. Americans are growing increasingly unhappy with their jobs, The Conference Board reports today. The decline in job satisfaction has occurred over a period of two decades, with little to suggest a significant reversal in attitudes anytime soon. Today, less than half of all Americans say they are satisfied with their jobs, down from 61 percent twenty years ago. This report was conducted for The Conference Board by TNS, a leading market information company.

Very recently, a large US electronics retailer reported laying-off 3,400 of their highest paid employees as a cost cutting measure. It makes you wonder…

• Why work so hard for the potential of increased satisfaction if your best efforts get you laid off?

• How is job satisfaction even possible if fewer employees are expected to work harder for less?

For many years the Human Resource community has tried to resolve problems with job dissatisfaction. Here's one explanation regarding why things have not improved:

FACT: Whether your satisfaction is "intrinsic or extrinsic" to the job really doesn't matter; it wouldn't exist if it weren't for something the employer was offering: the job, work assignments, pay, benefits, working conditions, training, supervision, promotions, or anything else.

FACT: Employers own the satisfactions they offer. You have to earn them and there are no guarantees. Here today and gone tomorrow due to the economy, war, terrorism, weather, theft, etc.

FACT: This makes your job satisfaction co-dependent on your performance, the effects of unpredictable circumstances, but also on what the employer decides to offer or take away. You can't control two out of three of these things, and even if you leave, your satisfaction in the next job will likewise be co-dependent on what the new employer offers or decides to take away.

FACT: Some dissatisfaction due to instability, layoffs, long hours, low pay, shrinking benefits, etc., may never be fixed or prevented. So what has evolved is an unspoken "take or leave it" atmosphere that tells you loud and clear: "you're on your own."

If the Conference Board report is correct, there could me more than 50 million people in America who are faced with dissatisfying jobs and working conditions, and these problems are not exclusive to the US.

Because the problems have existed for so long, and it appears nothing can be done about them, it's as if we've accepted them as a routine part of working. That's okay unless you happen to be one of the people who are experiencing the dissatisfaction. In which case, you may feel there is nothing anyone can do.

Not So, And We're Ready To Prove It!

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